About

About GatorMUN XVII

The University of Florida Model United Nations organization is pleased to bring you the seventeenth annual GatorMUN conference. Our conference provides a learning experience unlike any other by breaking from the traditional classroom setting to transform high school students into experts on pressing international issues. For the weekend, students become delegates in important international forums addressing complex global issues such as preventing the spread of diseases, defending human rights, and upholding justice in the international system. Unlike traditional Model United Nations conferences, GatorMUN focuses on offering specialized committees within the UN system allowing delegates to experience committees not always offered at Model United Nations conferences.

Because we have found that delegates respond enthusiastically to fast paced and high intensity situations, GatorMUN XVII will offer crisis simulations. Crises encourage delegates to use their problem-solving skills to apply their previous knowledge to new situations, ensuring that the debate never gets stagnant. In these committees, delegates will prepare to debate a specific issue, but they should expect to receive and act upon new information as the conference progresses. As in the real world, each decision they make will have consequences, and the committee will have to respond to whatever new situations they create. Furthermore, in the more traditional Assembly Committees, the directors will be prepared to introduce a crisis situation if they feel it will help foster more debate in their committees. This option, which received outstanding reviews as an impromptu idea at GatorMUN VI and was formally introduced at GatorMUN VII, will ensure that each committee challenges its delegates to be constantly collaborating on solutions to the world's problems.

GatorMUN XVII hopes to be a thrilling experience for both delegates and advisers, in and out of committee. GatorMUN will provide several open training workshops for delegates during registration, regardless of the delegate's level of experience. We will also continue to provide a lounge for advisers to chat and get work done while the students are in committee, and we plan to make sure that internet access is available for both advisers and delegates. In addition, we will provide delegates with an after-hours event that will keep them entertained while giving them a break from the intense debate of the weekend. ​

GatorMUN is staffed by college student volunteers. They primarily come from the University of Florida, but many come from colleges around the state. Some of them have been doing MUN for years, some just started MUN a few months ago, and some do not participate in MUN outside of GatorMUN. However, all of them staff this conference because they respect the importance of diplomacy, appreciate educating the generation of leaders and thinkers, and enjoy the thrill of the weekend. Our staffers are who make this conference happen!